Washington, DC – (May 28, 2020) Law Street Media, Fastcase’s industry-focused legal news service, today launched two additions to the service – an Alerts Center and an Agriculture section. Both are now available to all Law Street Media (LSM) subscribers at no additional fee, and without paywalls. LSM provides legal news for free, enabling readers to access full articles, court filings, and additional background materials related to specific industries.

Beginning today, the Agriculture news section is available on the site’s home page as well as in daily newsletter form, similar to the popular Technology legal news section. The Agriculture section features emerging litigation topics such as farming, food, tobacco, and cannabis. It covers wide-ranging subjects such as agriculture policy at the FDA and USDA, pioneering litigation involving the cannabis industry, environmental and land use coverage, and the growth of cutting-edge agricultural technologies. Each of the industry sections leverage Docket Alarm’s wealth of real-time docket, litigation, and analytics information to create legal news that generates business for its users.

“We wanted our second industry news feed to be about meat and potatoes litigation – literally, so our bar partners across the country and their members can see how tracking filed litigation leads to new business,” said Fastcase President Phil Rosenthal.

In addition to the new Agriculture section, LSM has developed and launched the Docket Alarm Alerts and Analytics Center. This new feature provides a sidebar on every LSM story involving litigation that links to searches for relevant parties, law firms, and judges within Docket Alarm. Readers can view search results and set new alerts in seconds. Subscribers need a Docket Alarm account to set email alerts, conduct further research, and access robust analytics, but can view the search results for free. This enriches existing and future LSM content with even more docket data, in addition to the access to complaints LSM already provides at no charge.

Combining Law Street’s news with Docket Alarm’s analytics furthers LSM’s goal of providing news that leads to business. Users can easily set alerts to track companies they’re interested in or follow competing law firms.

“We are eager to see how subscribers will use the new Alerts Center and the Agriculture section to enhance their book of business,” said David Nayer, Editor in Chief of Law Street Media. “We want to provide up-to-the-minute legal news in ways people can use. It’s timely that we’re opening the Agriculture section and Alerts Center now, while our world is finding its new normal, and its especially relevant to those in food production, food service, and supply chains that impact each of us.”

Law Street Media publishes legal news that leads to business. The news service was founded by legal journalist John Jenkins in 2013 and acquired by Fastcase in 2018. The reboot of Law Street complements Fastcase’s goal of democratizing the law and providing a smarter approach to legal research. Law Street’s industry-by-industry approach keeps the focus of news stories on clients. For more information, follow Law Street Media on Twitter @LawStreetMedia or visit www.lawstreetmedia.com.

About Docket Alarm

Docket Alarm is a national leader in docket research and legal analytics. Docket Alarm leverages a library of hundreds of millions of litigation records, as well as unique machine learning and natural language processing tools. The Docket Alarm API gives firms and companies the ability to leverage a giant database of PACER cases, alerting capabilities, and analysis in bulk. Docket Alarm was acquired by Fastcase in January 2018, and continues to be a disruptor in the legal analytics market. Follow Docket Alarm on Twitter @DocketAlarm

About Fastcase

Fastcase is a leading legal publisher that democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Fastcase is a comprehensive research suite of primary law, treatises, legal blogs, analytics, workflow tools, and legal news. Founded in 1999, the service has more than 900,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase, or visit www.fastcase.com.

]]>Alabama State Bar Announces Partnership with Fastcasehttps://www.fastcase.com/blog/alabama-state-bar-announces-partnership-with-fastcase/
Tue, 26 May 2020 12:45:10 +0000https://www.fastcase.com/?p=39525All Members Gain Free Access to Leading Legal Research Library

Montgomery, AL and Washington, DC (May 26, 2020) – Today, Fastcase announced a partnership with the Alabama State Bar (ASB) that provides free access to Fastcase’s nationwide legal research platform for all active members.

Since 2005, Alabama State Bar members have received unlimited access to a nationwide legal research content service as a member benefit. After a review of its member benefit offerings, the ASB decided to change legal research providers and will now be providing complimentary access to Fastcase, starting in September of this year.

“The Alabama State Bar is committed to providing benefits to Alabama lawyers that enhance their practices and help them better serve clients,” said 2019-2020 State Bar President Christy Crow. “Throughout my Presidency, I have been committed to improving member benefits so that every lawyer in Alabama realizes value for their membership. Our new partnership with Fastcase will allow members access to a tool trusted by many across our country. This year has been incredibly challenging to attorneys across our state due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is more important than ever that the Alabama State Bar enhances our services for our members.”

Fastcase and the ASB are providing each of the approximately 18,000 lawyers, judges, and legal professionals who are members with complimentary access to one of the largest law libraries in the world. This member benefit provides access to Fastcase’s robust primary law database, a service that includes unlimited printing, webinar training, and reference support; it is not restricted by time or number of transactions.

“Attorneys everywhere have had their lives disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal is to support bar members in any way we can, especially through their member benefits. At this difficult time when member services matter more than ever, we are so proud to announce this partnership by adding Fastcase to our core member benefit program,” said Phillip McCallum, Executive Director.

Bar members can login through the ASB website with their existing username and password to access the Fastcase library, which includes state and federal caselaw, as well as statutes and regulations at both the state and federal levels. This content is augmented by Fastcase’s patented search tools, which makes legal research smarter and easier, including its “Interactive Timeline” visualization of search results, “Forecite” to suggest cases researchers may have missed, and “Bad Law Bot”, the leading algorithmic tool to identify negative case treatment.

Alabama is now one of 34 states, in addition to the many metro, county, and specialty bar associations, that offer Fastcase’s smarter legal research tools as a free benefit to members. Through bar partnerships, Fastcase is made available at no charge to more than 900,000 lawyers, nearly three-quarters of all lawyers in the U.S. Many of the largest law firms in the country also subscribe to Fastcase, as well as the majority of U.S. law schools and leading corporate counsel.

About the Alabama State BarThe Alabama State Bar (ASB) is the official statewide organization of lawyers in Alabama. Since 1923, when the Alabama State Bar was created by an act of legislature, ASB programs and activities have continuously served the public and improved the justice system. It is dedicated to promoting the professional responsibility and competence of its members, improving the administration of justice, and increasing the public understanding of and respect of the law. For more information, follow the Alabama State Bar on Facebook and Twitter at @AlabamaStateBar or visit alabar.org.

About Fastcase

Fastcase is a leading legal publisher that democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Fastcase is a comprehensive research suite of primary law, treatises, legal blogs, analytics, workflow tools, and legal news. Founded in 1999, the service has more than 900,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase or visit fastcase.com.

]]>7.5.8.1 – A Set of Important Changeshttps://www.fastcase.com/changelog/7-5-8-1-a-set-of-important-changes/
Wed, 15 Apr 2020 01:37:57 +0000https://www.fastcase.com/?p=392434/15/2020

What’s Fixed

– Jurisdiction and Sources. Choosing jurisdiction(s) is a bit simpler: After filtering, the app now shows only the most-relevant sources. We’ve also made a few other small cosmetic changes.

– Facet Pane persistent closure. After you close the Facet Pane, the app will now remember that choice until the session ends.

– Hein Journals. Lists were out of order, but now they’re propery alphabetical.

– Alerts. Each alert will now be a separate e-mail. (Granularity-lovers rejoice!) And now you can send a single alert to multiple recipients. When adding recipients, remember: With great power comes great responsibility.

Democratizing COVID-19 resources at a critical time

We talk about how we founded Fastcase in order to democratize the law, and after spending the last week reaching out to our bar partners, firm customers and publishing peers, the result is we have created the free Fastcase Peer Resource Center for COVID-19. Our goal is to centralize real-time, relevant information and resources about COVID-19’s impact on our community to arm you with information you need. In addition to Fastcase, Docket Alarm and Law Street Media free legal resources, we wanted to support and highlight those resources we consider invaluable and free among our peers, firms and government agencies. Thanks to our peer publishing partners including LexBlog, SKOPOS Legislative tracker and of course the Fastcase, Docket Alarm and Law Street Media product team for curating free and enhanced content for public reading.

In light of the COVID-19 epidemic the Fastcase team is working with our partners to ensure lawyers and volunteers have access to complimentary resources available to them. If at any time you’re experiencing difficulty logging into your account, please contact the Fastcase team at relief@fastcase.com and access will be provided. Fastcase has created a COVID-19 resource hub, bringing together free legislative and government updates and COVID-19 content across leading news media sources.

Additionally, in the coming days and weeks Fastcase will be coordinating to provide additional webinars for relief support. Many of these webinars are available for CLE credit in many jurisdictions, and a great way to accumulate CLE credit remotely. Visit our webinar schedule blog post to sign up for sessions now.

Court closures and Emergency Orders Tracker – a comprehensive website tracking the latest closures and emergency orders across federal and several state courts, updated by the largest team of licensed litigation attorneys in the industry.

Plaintiffs Derrick Palmer, Kendia Mesidor, Benita Rouse, Alexander Rouse, Barbara Chandler, and Luis Pellot-Chandler filed a complaint against Amazon in relation to its JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The plaintiffs claimed that Amazon failed to “comply with New York law and state and federal […]

A recent breach of contract lawsuit in the New York Northern District Court alleges a delivery company, Maines Paper & Food Service, refused to pay $342,908.20 which they owed to a seafood provider for products they took to deliver during February 2020. Maines has received other recent lawsuits with similar allegations of a breach of […]

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, along with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have introduced the Exposure Notification Privacy Act, to “protect consumer privacy and promote public health in the development of these tools.” The bill is a response to the […]

As a first step to implementing a system for broadening entry into the country, the Japanese government is currently engaging in discussions to begin permitting entry of certain individuals from Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand for business purposes, including management, executives, specialists, technical trainees and internal company transferees. As discussed in our prior blog...

There has been much discussion of late around the effect of COVID-19 on leases, focusing in particular on the non-payment of rents by tenants and the limitation on the landlord’s usual arsenal of options for non-payment. As the lockdown eases and tenants prepare to return to their premises, there are likely to be other lease...

One of the changes to the furlough scheme announced by the Chancellor last Friday was that the scheme will close to new entrants on 30 June, and so the last date on which an employer can furlough an employee for the first time is 10 June 2020 (so they can complete the minimum three week...

Peer Resources

Fastcase would like to highlight some important resources from other legal publishing companies as well. Everyone deserves to have the resources they need to meet their firm’s and client’s short and long term legal information needs.

In addition to the standard Fastcase webinars, our team is introducing a series of non-CLE approved webinars to learn more about the COVID-19 Pandemic and how it pertains to the legal and legal tech industries.

Upcoming Webinars

The COVID-19 pandemic canceled numerous in-person events and now we move to the world of virtual conferencing. In this best practices edition of WFH Wednesday, we talk all things virtual meeting for the lawyer in 2020. Strategies. What not to do. Legal snafus. What do the standing orders say? Did he really not wear a shirt? Learn all this and more, no human contact required.

Trying to stay on top of all legal developments stemming from COVID-19 pandemic? Our Managing Director for the Fastcase Legal Research Platform, Damien Riehl, will discuss how you can use Fastcase to (1) research the most-recent COVID-19 legal developments, as well as (2) set alerts to be notified of new, breaking developments. In the process, Damien will discuss some of the country’s most-recent and most-interesting COVID-19 cases, statutes, secondary materials, and regulations. We hope that you’ll be able to join this informative and timely discussion.

What’s Fixed

– Facet fixes. We improved Facets (left-side filters), fixing where they sometimes collapsed after selection, showed multiple checkboxes, and other minor bugs — which now should be squashed.

– Keyword Highlighting. We fixed an issue where the wrong terms were showing up when you pulled a historical or saved search.

What’s Changed

Jurisdiction and sources picker. You’ve spoken, and we’ve listened. A larger, more-intuitive screen now permits faster jurisdiction/source selections.
– Simply click a state to browse and select that state’s federal/state/secondary options.
– Or type a source keyword (e.g., “Bankruptcy”) to see all jurisdictions/sources containing that keyword.
– Or on the right side, simply browse to find the jurisdictions/sources you need.

– Search box expands to multiple lines. Are you a power user who creates complex queries — going beyond the Search Box? You’re in luck! Now, long query string span to multiple lines, allowing you to see the entire query. Complexity simplified!

– Each Current Source fits on a single line. Before, each Current Source would be nested — where each Current Source took up multiple lines. We’ve now saved some space, so each Current Source takes up only a single line. That saves screen real estate, and it lets you to see more Current Sources without scrolling.

Washington, DC (March 19, 2020) – Legal publisher Fastcase and partner HB Litigation Conferences today announced a journal partnership to provide firms with expert insights into emerging litigation. The new Journal of Emerging Litigation will be led by Managing Director and Founder of HB Litigation Conferences Tom Hagy, who was the former Publisher and Managing Editor of LexisNexis Mealey’s Litigation Reports. The Journal will be published by Full Court Press, the imprint of Fastcase.

“With many new areas of emerging litigation, from vaping and the emerging health crisis to privacy breaches to the in city invasion of e-scooters or the malodorous air pollution of hemp farms, our Docket Alarm service is in a unique position to track the filing data. We wanted to use this data to focus on new types of lawsuits and the experts who are leading the charge, before litigation completely unfolds. To do so, we have tapped a strong journalist and leader who can make sense of these new types of lawsuits and pick the best of the best to cover. Tom Hagy was the first and best choice for us,” noted Steve Errick, COO of Fastcase.

Publishing its first issue this summer, the journal’s focus will parallel Hagy’s career-long concentration on emerging areas of litigation, supported with the valuable filing data from Docket Alarm. He added, “Emerging Litigation has always been driven by word-of-mouth until the first few verdicts come in and then the race is on. When Law Street Media Editor-in-Chief David Nayer told me Juul lawsuits were averaging four filings a month in April 2019, and 240 a month in October, it underscored the predictive value of early activity among litigators. Working with the Law Street Media and Docket Alarm teams as they count and track emerging litigation at the filing level grants us a fantastic ability to jump ahead and cover litigation as it unfolds – now that’s emerging litigation data!”

“I am excited to work with an innovative, growing company like Fastcase,” Hagy said. “I have a passion for emerging areas of litigation and working with top lawyers from around the country to cover these cases, evaluate them, and share valuable insights with professionals in the legal and business communities.”

Law Street Media Editor-in-Chief David Nayer envisions the journal as a continuation of Fastcase’s legal news service and a must-have resource for firms embracing emerging litigation. “As exciting as it is to cover breaking litigation daily, we wanted to expand our capabilities by connecting the Law Street Media data pipeline with Full Court Press, transforming breaking news into practice and deeper analysis.”

“Our motto for Law Street is: Legal News Leads to Business,” Nayer said. “One sure way to drive business to a law firm is to know about emerging litigation first. With our Emerging Litigation Journal – our subscribers can be among the first to see litigation trends and how leading litigators are developing their legal analysis. This all supports growing a firm’s book of business. It’s the roadmap for rainmakers in small and large firms alike.”

As part of the launch, Hagy will form an Editorial Board of advisors with respective industry litigation expertise, and work closely with the Docket Alarm and Law Street Media team to cover the most urgent new litigation trends of 2020 and beyond.

About Fastcase

Fastcase is a leading legal publisher that democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Fastcase is a comprehensive research suite of primary law, treatises, legal blogs, analytics, workflow tools, and legal news. Founded in 1999, the service has more than 900,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase or visit fastcase.com.

About HB Litigation Conferences

Tom Hagy founded HB Litigation Conferences LLC in 2008 to produce CLE conferences and webinars on dynamic areas of litigation within mass torts, class actions, insurance, and privacy law. To fill the need for white-label legal and business content, Hagy also founded Custom Legal Content LLC to serve a limited number of carefully selected clients. Hagy is former Managing Editor and Publisher of Mealey’s Litigation Reports (now part of LexisNexis) where he expanded a portfolio of litigation news and commentary reports on emerging areas, as well as a parallel conference operation. He is a former Vice President of Content at LexisNexis, where he led or participated in the development of rich content collections relating to jury verdicts and settlements; briefs, pleadings and motions; and expert witnesses.

]]>Fastcase and American Bar Association Announce Library of Leading Section Titles Now Availablehttps://www.fastcase.com/blog/fastcase-and-american-bar-association-announce-library-of-leading-section-titles-now-available/
Tue, 17 Mar 2020 12:45:51 +0000https://www.fastcase.com/?p=38863Fastcase Legal Research Platform Now Includes Over 700 Secondary Titles

Washington, DC and Chicago, IL (March 17, 2020) – Legal publisher Fastcase and the American Bar Association (ABA) today announced that select titles from the ABA’s leading sections are now available in the Fastcase legal research platform.

The ABA, a leading national publisher of legal treatises, books, and practice guides across all market segments and practice areas of law, has contributed 87 books to the Fastcase library. These are available for individual purchase by all Fastcase subscribers – more than three-quarters of all lawyers across the nation. Interested Fastcase users can access the titles by signing up for à la carte annual subscriptions, with unlimited access to book updates as they become available.

Fastcase and the ABA announced their partnership in the spring of 2019. With this partnership, Fastcase continues to advance its mission of making the law more accessible to more people and bolsters the company’s efforts to give law firms, law schools, and law libraries access to unique, must-have expert commentary published in consumer-friendly media formats.

“When traditional legal publishers were ramping down their book divisions, the state bars and the ABA stepped up and kept legal book publishing vibrant,” said Steve Errick, Fastcase’s Chief Operating Officer. “Fastcase is a long-standing partner of bar associations and is working hand in hand with state, local, and specialty bar associations, as well as national publishers like Wolters Kluwer, James Publishing, and Littler Mendelson, to make sure our subscribers have access to leading expert secondary content and our publishing partners have wide distribution. The trust the ABA has placed in making its publications available in Fastcase speaks to the long-term value of a shared vision to enrich the legal research experience for the wider legal community.”

Fastcase subscribers, as well as members of bar associations that provide access to Fastcase’s online law library as a member benefit, will receive unrestricted access to any individual or practice section publication through individual and special bundled retail pricing for annual subscriptions. Law schools, large firms, and government organizations will also be able to subscribe to the collection as part of their Fastcase access.

“We are excited to partner the ABA’s highly regarded book content with Fastcase’s dynamic platform,” said Bryan Kay, Director of Editorial and Licensing for ABA Publishing. “We share Fastcase’s vision to provide lawyers with the secondary content they need to excel in their work and advance the Rule of Law; and are pleased to join Fastcase in its commitment to grow creative, expert, sensible content written by lawyers for lawyers.”

The titles are available for purchase in conjunction with Fastcase’s other publishing partners, as well as its own publishing imprint, Full Court Press.

Fastcase users can search the new treatises within the Fastcase legal research platform immediately. For assistance with accessing the new secondary materials, users can contact customer support at 1-866-77-FASTCASE (866.773.2782). Those without a Fastcase subscription can try the new integration by signing up for a free trial at www.fastcase.com.

About Fastcase

Fastcase is a leading legal publisher that democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Fastcase is a comprehensive research suite of primary law, treatises, legal blogs, analytics, workflow tools, and legal news. Founded in 1999, the service has more than 900,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase or visit fastcase.com.

About the ABA

The American Bar Association is one of the largest voluntary professional membership organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. View our privacy statement online. Follow the latest ABA news at www.americanbar.org/news and on Twitter @ABANews.